Hollow Men
by starlingnight
Summary: Roxas likes to think that he can feel, just a little bit. Axel thinks he's wrong. In the end, of course, it doesn't matter either way.


I was reading TS Eliot's 'The Hollow Men', and I thought the words could match up with Kingdom Hearts and the Nobodies pretty well. This is slightly Axel/Roxas. I don't own any of the Eliot quotes. Squenix owns Kingdom Hearts. Enjoy.

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Slash, slice, sweep the blade along, cut into the nearly-almost-flesh. Heartless flesh always has a slight feeling of substance, but it's always slight, and they disappear into nothing so _quickly_ once dispatched. The only time they feel real is when their claws are ripping at him. His black coat never escapes encounters with the tougher creatures unscathed, but that's OK, 'cause Axel is a dab hand with a needle and thread. Who would have guessed?

Axel says that he learned fast after Saix kept making him pay for his own coat repairs. "Number VIII, deduct 2,000 munny for coat." He says Roxas should learn. Maybe he should, but Roxas likes escaping the Coat sometimes and sticking to the black pants, boots and long-sleeved top that go under it, while waiting for the coat to be patched up. Sometimes that hood gets stifling hot, especially in Agrabah.

It's nice, watching Axel sew. His favourite place is on the clock tower. He laughs when Axel pricks his finger and drops the needle onto the courtyard below and swears, and when Xion shows up with icecream she helps, 'cause it turns out that Xion isn't so bad at needlework either. She doesn't know where she learned it but she says she keeps thinking of a beach. Like the sea, and sand. And a pair of red pants, and a wooden sword, and other things that make no sense.

_Our dried voices, when/We whisper together/Are quiet and meaningless/As wind in dry grass_

Is this what it feels like? Having a heart, sort of thing. Roxas doesn't have any memories of who he used to be but in the back of his head there's a shadow, a glimmer, a hint of something that he can't remember but for some reason he imagines Xion with red hair then.

Axel has red hair, too. It looks rigid but it moves softly in the breeze when the wind flies past the clocktower.

Roxas still thinks about Larxene, Zexion, Vexen, Marluxia, Lexaeus. Those who died at Oblivion, in Oblivion, hah. When he brings them up the air becomes brittle and Axel becomes reluctant to speak.

_Those who have crossed/With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom/Remember us—if at all—not as lost/Violent souls, but only/As the hollow men_

"They weren't people. They didn't even exist. They weren't real, Roxas. And neither are we. That's why we fight, so we can _become_ real."

Axel recites the words like a litany, staring into the perpetual sunset. It doesn't look like the grey twilight of the Castle, being all red and gold despite the town's name. Roxas thinks that if that's twilight, and if twilight is all they are, maybe it's not so bad.

He catches Axel staring at him sometimes. And then he hears a whisper_. "...so we can become real..." _Repeating what he's been told, like he's convincing himself. Because Nobodies don't have hearts, see?

_Sightless, unless/The eyes reappear/As the perpetual star/Multifoliate rose/Of death's twilight kingdom/The hope only/Of empty men._

Roxas works hard. He fights and fights, until he's ready to drop dead by the end of the day. Sometimes he forgets what keeps him going. After all, he doesn't have a heart. Why does he keep fighting? (Slash, sweep, slice, cut. Heartless after Heartless after Heartless.) Sometimes he thinks that it's because of what Axel told him. Sometimes he thinks it's Axel and Xion. Sometimes he thinks it's Axel. But Nobodies are empty. Hollow. Hollow people, hollow men.

_There, the eyes are/Sunlight on a broken column/There, is a tree swinging/And voices are/In the wind's singing/More distant and more solemn/Than a fading star._

One day he leaves, because there's a memory of red hair and spiky hair and the Keyblade and none of it's Axel, but some of it's Xion. Then it's all over. He forgets Axel, for a time, and forgets Xion forever because she never existed after all – right?

And it's over. All over. Do you see, Roxas? Do you see how things are? You were never meant to exist, you're nothing, you're nobody, you're a sham you're a lie you're somebody else. You're nobody and your time is up. Your time is up and your summer holidays, they're over, forever and ever, and you should have taken a break while you could because the rest of your life is going to be spent as somebody else, and it's going to be spent the way you spent your own, fighting and fighting but now Axel isn't there to stitch up your coat. You don't wear a coat anymore. You kill the people who wear coats instead.

Nobodies aren't allowed to love. This is a rule, see? A rule, a law of nature and existence. Roxas is nothing and no one and a nobody, but there was someone once who made him feel like he had a heart.

But of course, he doesn't need a needle and thread to patch him up and keep him going anymore, because he's got a whole new (heart) set of clothes, that's real, true, solid and who's that person with the red hair again? Oh yes, _her _name is _Kairi_.

This is the way the world ends.


End file.
